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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Happy Thursday! Here I am to share my palette of the week with a bit more of my homage to Klimt inspired by the 29 faces challenge......which to me has felt more like 329 faces! When I first thought about joining the challenge, I almost didn't because as some of you know, I'm a REALLY slow worker and I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to do it. But I *almost"*made it, finishing with 24- does that count? Anyway, with this painting, I decided to fade out parts of the smaller faces because they were just too much. I'm now working to finish it instead of cramming more (or at least not a lot more;)) faces in! As I worried, my thoughts on this piece have turned away from the quantity of faces it has, to the quality of faces that I have on there. I'm just too anal to leave it! So here it is as I left it today...

it's sloooowly getting closer to where I want it.....sorry about the lighting here, it was quite overcast today!

and here's my palette for the week, for those of you who don't know, I use a piece of canvas wrapped with plastic as a "do it yourself" disposable palette ;)

Be sure to stop by the Palette & Paint Thursday at the very talented Tracey Potter's blog- definitely look, and why not think about adding your own link, just take a picture of your palette to share- it's lots of fun!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

One of the hardest concepts for me when I was studying was the idea of "negative space" -how could you draw something that wasn't there? And why would you want to? The answer to that question took me a loooong time to understand, but I now know that by correctly depicting the space around things, you end up enhancing the subject you're trying to represent. Anyway, I took my students on a journey to study negative space and explore a new technique this week. We're creating silhouettes of birds and trees, but instead of the traditional black shadows, these silhouettes will be in white! I had them draw birds and tree branches and then outline the space around; aka negative space....tough concept, but they came through with flying colors!

Once they outlined their birds and trees, they filled the space with flowers and then colored it in so the only white o their papers would be the birds and trees. Now for the new technique; we used linseed oil to transform the oil pastels into paint! Much like watercolor pencils, except it's oil instead of water! This was actually the first kind of painting that I enjoyed as a kid!

Next week, they'll finish their background areas and color their birds and trees a bit but only using whites and greys to keep the silhouette feel to the piece- I'm pretty sure these are going to be amazing!

Friday, February 24, 2012

So yesterday, I had to put my Klimt-ish piece on the back burner- I just need to study it for a bit. But in the meantime, thank you for all the suggestions and kind comments- I really appreciate them! And also, thank you Priti Lisa for the suggestion to do a slideshow of the progression of my 29 Faces of Klimt-ish-ness- I thought it was a great idea and it's now in my side bar!

For today, I'm going back to another piece that has been niggling at me, saying it's not quite complete....

my Soul Singer Cello Chick (and no, that's not the title, but I am open to suggestions!)

I've been wanting to add faces to the moons for a while now, even before I started the 29 Faces challenge. So, yesterday, I did! I also did some more work on the Cello and more touch ups here and there........

So, here she is!

I'll be playing a little more today, making the big face a little more subtle and the smaller ones a bit more obvious....you get the idea!

For now, be sure to pop over to Paint Party Friday to see what everyone else has been up to- it's always great fun and very inspiring!update- Finis!

touched up her face, the moon faces and sky and although there's always more I could do to a painting, this one tells me it's complete and that's good enough for me!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Two more of my Klimt-y faces- this makes me almost caught up. I had some sort of stomach bug the last couple days and my energy has been down, down, DOWN! I think I'm back to normal tho.

Or what passes for normal with me!

Here's what it looks like (or most of it- part of the canvas got cropped
out and I don't have time right now to fix it;)) I've been playing with
the background more and parts of it, I'm really happy with- others not
so much. I'm toying with the idea of adding writing in, what do ya'll
think? The problem is, I now like it enough that I'm committed to doing
more than just painting 29 faces on it! Now I want to finish it, maybe
even keep it for my own self....or give it away or something, but first,
I have to get it to that point where I can declare it finis!

I'm including my palette here. And just for the point of interest, I
wanted to share the fact that I've been using this water container for
more than 20 years- it's become a sort of good luck companion for me.
Of course the inside stays clean but there are bits of acrylic all
around the outside which I LOVE.
It's like I get to keep a piece of
every painting I've ever done!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Hello all, I hope everyone had a great weekend! We spent the weekend working on installing my anniversary and Valentine's Day present plus birthday presents for about the next ten years! A tankless hot water heater which doesn't sound so very romantic until you know that this is the next step in creating and claiming my studio! What used to be our garage is very slowly becoming MY painting space and I can't wait! But I'll have to wait because it is a process...anyway, that's why I haven't updated my faces until now. I actually did these on Friday but didn't photograph them until this morning.

I was so happy the other day when I did a head count to realize that I now have 20 faces on the canvas! If you look closely, you can see where I've blocked in to add more....I'll be working some more on this today and will update tomorrow....until then; have a blessed day!
xo
Stephanie

Friday, February 17, 2012

WOW, 49 weeks of PPF and I've been there for a lot of them! Here's an update on my Klimt painting plus another face for the 29 Faces challenge- woo hoo we're well over half way done and I'm still goin' strong!!

I have to say I'm a LOT happier with it now that it doesn't have so many primary colors in it.....it's slowly coming together for me! I am ALSO glad the there are only 12 more days of the challenge, 'cause I'm starting to run out of room! Anyway, pop over to Paint Party Friday to see what everyone else has been up to- the party gets bigger and bigger each week!
Cheers,
Stephanie

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

It's really funny how things work out sometimes.....I've been putting together these sketchbooks to get into the mail but I just wasn't quite happy with the way my November pages looked- they just seemed unfinished somehow. Anyway, I need to come up with 2 faces to get caught up with the 29 Facers and voila! I was able to finish my pages for Lori's book...

here it is all put together...

close up of the pocket I made for a postcard writeup for Lori

and the postcard

So that's it for me for today. I'll be back with more work on my painting- for today, I just wanted to keep it short but sweet as they say!

Friday, February 10, 2012

As a Mom, Artist, Wife and (much more things that I won't bore you with here;)) I have to budget my time carefully. Knowing that later this afternoon my kids will come piling through the door for the beginning of a 10 day break, I'm going to have to get a little ahead of myself if I want to keep up with the 29 Facers!

So for today, I did 5 more wee little faces. Because they're only about the
size of a dime, I'm only gonna count them for 3 days.....and here they
are:

I like the way they tuck in along her veil/halo/hood whatever that thing is- the muse said to paint it,

and who am I to ignore voices in my head!

I also did a little more background work- it's getting closer to where I want it to be- but maybe a little "Primary Colors" dominant than I'd like......and I'm not crazy about all the circles- I might paint them out and start over with more "Klimtish" circles....

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Wow, it's day 9 and I've been working all morning, mostly on background stuff. Have I ever mentioned that the background is almost always the hardest part of most of my paintings? Well, it is, and this one's no exception! Anyway here's the face I did for today:

I'm having a LOT of fun with these little non traditional faces!

And here's the overall piece:

so, should it go this way?

or THIS way?

I'm using this for my Paint Party Friday post- be sure to check them out if haven't already- there's always SO much to see at the party!and
I'm also linking to Palette & Paint Thursday- Tracey Potter's fun weekly blog party.....